30 November 2009

He wondered aloud if the world would end on a cute note instead of a gruesome one. What if our days were numbered once a giant teddy bear appeared and hugged us out of existence, rainbows taking our place?

My teddy bear Velcro is as old as I am. He has no fur left.

Words I use most often in my poems: scatter, intention, and, tired...

My thoughts are scattered today, displaced. I wonder if there is a universal mind; I wonder if said mind catches these thoughts as they slip away from me.

Or perhaps I'm elevating humanity like we always do, like we are the be all, end all of everything, when really, we think more about nachos, bills, and attractive swimwear than anything remotely theoretical and salvageable.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.“If you squeeze a little too tightly, you might kill the bird.” – Ed Gein, famous American murderer and grave robber

Through trial and error, consequence. No birds, no bush.When they found her, they said she was hanging by her feet,headless, ripped open like a deer. Skulls used as soup bowls,corner posts for his bed and living room décor. Her head,however, was never found. When he was arrested, he didnot fight. He confessed to using human skin to upholsterchairs and lampshades. When given anecdotes by a psychiatrist, he answered truthfully. “There are alwaysconsequences,” he would casually say, sometimes unprompted, sometimes through a grin. “I don’t care much for birds. They make too much noise. I like silence. I can get more work done.” It was a little bird that told me to be careful of silence.

I dream. I leave a tiny print on the glass, the surface of your mind. It’s still. I hear the hum of machines, the beeps of a sleepy printer. I dream. The words wrap around my fingers tightly. They bind my hands. I can only press one key at a time—poke, poke, poke. The computer forgives me. I dream, close to the canvas, microchips warm to greet me.

24 November 2009

With five minutes left in my back pocket, I approach you (all superficial smiles and long underwear). This is the cute one, in all white, and she reminds me of some child I saw in a coffee shop in my hometown, her mother all Triple White Out, mostly foam. Everyone loves the coffee as much as Clint Eastwood loves the snarl.

I'm almost late, and I feel like the White Rabbit without the vest. MY heart is pounding, MY stomach is growling and wants more than coffee, dark juices sans vitamins. I am the typical polite one; the cute one in all white looks like me only from a different time, one with imaginary tea instead of coffee, with principles instead of obligations.

I'm late, and yet I'm always the first one there anyway. Show me, Mary, how does it go?

19 November 2009

I got these paper hands don't wanna hold nothing that won't cut that isn't delicate.Drug fizz got her brain all wonky no talkie just sips and leaves with a stick man.Stick man no Hunter no Allen no Neal, just a wannabe fuckrocker with bad intentions.At first seems nice now seems rapist now seems fizz fizz fizz see through hands.The voices drown out other voices and silence just happens suddenly inside an egg.Reminded of that short story, we are all eggs but we don't know it until we are drunk.Until we pretend we are empowered radio action scared into origami into folds of oblivion.Until we pretend we are noise white noise stuck between pages don't wanna hold nothing.

18 November 2009

I wonder if the shape of this flesh is complicated by the electricity within it. (The sky can't be a cruel joke.)In my dream is a face I've never seen, electric eyes. I look to the ceiling, the pasted stars--glow-in-the-dark--and trace the shape of a storm cloud (unintentional).I've spent a lot of time in this body, and yet it feels borrowed, not mine. Are faces recycled sometimes, a Julia in Eighteen-fifty now a Sandra in Twenty-oh-nine?A different face appears, and I swear I've seen those lips before, those eyes, but where? Feeling electric, I caress this dream, careful to ignore this (clumsy man-made reality).They don't know how the electricitygot in our brain, in our heart. How can it keep time, this constant dance? The sky can't be a cruel joke but it's silent.

I haven't been writing very good poems lately, but that's ok. It's about process, forgiveness, growth--being the flower instead of the weed, being the voice that stretches, tickled by the sun. I try not to prick clumsy fingers, and I forget that no one blames the rose. I guess this is a fine example of my predicament. I don't know what is good, if I'm good--a good person, a good friend, a good artist. I wonder how much it matters. We ignore the dandelions until they're out of control.

15 November 2009

I'm helpless or helpful, depending on which piece of land I'm standing on, and yet the grass gives under my feet all the same. My shoes feel the difference. My head is in someone else's dream.

I'm assuming you can read this. If so, you should know that I have a song for you. It isn't well-written, or even pretty, but it has to do with the skeleton of your goodness, how it's buried in a shallow grave, a collar- bone sticking up out of the ground.

13 November 2009

First, she's twenty-three, with a coy expression I recognize in myself. Then, she's twenty-six, and the bass player is lighting her cigarette in black and white, a coffee stain in the corner. That half grin is solid, knowing, and I'm stricken by how much she resembles my mother at that age, all fresh and dangerous, a dab of color on each eye. Flip the page and she's thirty-four with shoulder pads, pointy breasts, another few pages, and she's forty-something, a wig for a crown, at a tea party with mis-matched dishes and deviled eggs. And I wonder where the first expression went, that coyness exchanged for wisdom, for heartache, a whisper instead of a yell. That half grin is still solid and knowing. I never knew her, and yet her finger prints smudge the corners of my visit, and somehow, she's permanent, a tenant in a memory revisited, casually observed, mourned by an outsider.

To cut it without ruining the frosting,Use a long piece of floss—A knife isn’t delicate;It will tear at the design,Smear the roses,Completely disjoint the lettersThat form Congratulations—We don’t want to do such a thingTo something so lovely.Be patient while I slice.Be patient while I try to maintainThis perfect confection.Perfection.We won’t eat until I’m done.Take a picture of me while you wait.

The object is to walk faster than the moth can fly. Bigger games are abandoned as little ones push past—puzzle pieces, small fragments, little truths to make chaos seem organized, meaningful. Even numbers

are more comfortable than odd. Soft sounds are gentler than harsh ones—static in my ear, sharp esses stinging.

"Shut up," I guess, is your favorite phrase. I suppose the trick is to keep on walking. I don't look behind me.

A moth gets stuck between the screen and the pane. Don't watch as the moth escapes, the shape of a bird in the background. The object is to not sense its longing,

or even imagine it. The object is to not identify with the moth—a small fragment trapped between safety and fear.

05 November 2009

It took an afterthought to realize I was the graffiti of your past, a secret alibi tattooed in places only the lucky get to see.

I posted a declaration on your door, made it public, without the intention of starting a cult. But here we are, throwing the rotten fruit away and saving the ripe ones for worship.

I wrote my name on the back of your shoulder while you were sleeping. We had fruit and conversation for breakfast. "These are the times that try men's souls," you said, spurting juice, and for a second I forget who said those words before you did.

Instead of smiling, I remembered my role, and left the words for you to imagine, like the etchings barely painted over, a trace of an idea covered by others, an afterthought for sure.

04 November 2009

just an aside, i guess, not that anyone asked for it, but I sometimes question the weight of numbers, the population status quo, the data figured and manipulated to persuade everyone that money is good, worship money, money is the new love, the old love, the resurrected christ, round two.

waste those nickels and dimes and enjoy your addiction, cigarettes piled high next to you, you're on your fourth martini, and all she wanted was to be seen, wanted to marry the woman of her dreams, and it doesn't really matter anymore, because christ loves money and not people.

rub buddha's belly for luck at the tables, kiss that rabbit's foot before the races. the people have spoken, and they want trash. the people have spoken, and they want more, more, more, more, more, more, more, sung to the tune of wheel of fortune, sung to the tune of deal or no deal. no fucking deal.

03 November 2009

pick up the phone an absent caller, wrong number, or maybe it was on purpose, to plant a seed in my ear, if venom was fertile. but to be open about the matter invites opinion, sharp teeth, feigning concern. all i know is that i'm sorry, if i hurt you enough to drive you. i do the best i can with the smile, the pen, the frailty of words, of mistakes. all i ask is please don't spear me. spare me. i cross my fingers you got the wrong number.

About the Blogger

Shannon Ranee McKeehen, author of Barbra in Shadow and These Cells Are Passages, is a writer and teacher who received her MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. She is currently at Kent State University, where she is pursuing a PhD in the English: Literacy, Rhetoric, and Social Practice (LRSP) program.